West
Washington Senate approves $8M to combat addiction among Native Americans, but some say it is not enough
Evelyn Jefferson walks deep into a forest dotted with the tents of unhoused Lummi Nation tribal members and calls out names. When someone appears, she and a nurse hand out the opioid overdose reversal medication Naloxone.
Jefferson, a tribal member herself, knows how critical these kits are: Just five months ago, her own son died of an overdose from a synthetic opioid that’s about 100 times more potent than fentanyl. The 37-year-old’s death was the fourth related to opioids in four days on the reservation.
“It took us eight days to bury him because we had to wait in line, because there were so many funerals in front of his,” said Jefferson, crisis outreach supervisor for Lummi Nation. “Fentanyl has really taken a generation from this tribe.”
CRISIS IN THE NORTHWEST: POLICE STRUGGLE AS FENTANYL’S GRIP IN RURAL OREGON BECOMES ‘NEXUS’ OF DAILY RESPONSES
A bill before the Washington Legislature would bring more state funding to tribes like Lummi that are trying to keep opioids from taking the next generation too. The state Senate unanimously approved a bill this week that is expected to provide nearly $8 million total each year for the 29 federally recognized tribes in Washington, funds drawn in part from a roughly half-billion-dollar settlement between the state and major opioid distributors.
The approach comes as Native Americans and Alaska Natives in Washington die of opioid overdoses at five times the state average, according to 2021-2022 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that includes provisional numbers. The rate in Washington is one of the highest in the U.S. and more than three times the rate nationwide — but many of the state’s Indigenous nations lack the funding or medical resources to fully address it.
Lummi Nation, like many tribes, faces an additional challenge when it comes to keeping outside drug dealers off their land: A complicated jurisdictional maze means tribal police often can’t arrest non-tribal members on the reservation.
Evelyn Jefferson, a crisis outreach supervisor for Lummi Nation, stands at her son’s grave at the Lummi Nation cemetery on tribal reservation lands, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024, near Bellingham, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
“What do we do when we have a non-Lummi, predatory drug dealer on our reservation with fentanyl, driving around or on their property and are selling drugs?” said Anthony Hillaire, tribal chairman.
Against the backdrop, tribes such as the Lummi Nation, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Seattle, say the proposed funding — while appreciated — would barely scratch the surface. The tribe of about 5,300 people on the shores of the Salish Sea has already suffered nearly one overdose death a week this year.
Lummi Nation needs $12 million to fully finance a 16-bed, secure medical detox facility that incorporates the tribe’s culture, Hillaire said, and money to construct a new counseling center after damage from flooding. Those costs alone far exceed the annual total that would be designated for tribes under the legislation. The Senate has proposed allotting $12 million in its capital budget to the facility.
“We’re a sovereign nation. We’re a self-governed tribe. We want to take care of ourselves because we know how to take care of ourselves,” he said. “And so we usually just need funding and law changes — good policies.”
The proposed measure would earmark funds deposited into an opioid settlement account, which includes money from the state’s $518 million settlement in 2022 with the nation’s three largest opioid distributors, for tribes battling addiction. Tribes are expected to receive $7.75 million or 20% of the funds deposited into the account the previous fiscal year — whichever is greater — annually.
Republican state Sen. John Braun, one of the bill’s sponsors, has said he envisions the funds being distributed through a grant program.
“If this ends up being the wrong amount of money or we’re distributing it inequitably, I’m happy to deal with this,” he said. “This is just going to get us started, and make sure we’re not sitting on our hands, waiting for the problem to solve itself.”
Opioid overdose deaths for Native Americans and Alaska Natives have increased dramatically in the past few years in Washington, with at least 100 in 2022 — 75 more than in 2019, according to the most recent numbers available from the Washington State Department of Health.
In September, Lummi Nation declared a state of emergency over fentanyl, adding drug-sniffing dogs and checkpoints, while revoking bail for drug-related charges.
The tribe has also opened a seven-bed facility to help members with withdrawal and get them on medication for opioid use disorder, while providing access to a neighboring cultural room where they work with cedar and sage. In its first five months, the facility treated 63 people, the majority of whom are still on the medication regimen today, said Dr. Jesse Davis, medical director of the Lummi Healing Spirit Opioid Treatment program.
But truly thwarting this crisis must go beyond just Lummi Nation working on its own, said Nickolaus Lewis, Lummi councilmember.
“We can do everything in our power to protect our people. But if they go out into Bellingham, they go out anywhere off the reservation, what good is it going to do if they have different laws and different policies, different barriers?” he said.
The tribe has urged Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and President Joe Biden to declare states of emergency in response to the opioid crisis to create a bigger safety net and drive additional vital resources to the problem.
In the encampment in Bellingham, Jefferson estimates there are more than 60 tribal members, some she recognizes as her son’s friends, while others are Lummi elders. She suspects many of them left the reservation to avoid the tribe’s crackdown on opioids.
When she visits them, her van filled with food, hand warmers and clothing to hand out, she wears the shirt her niece gave her the day after her son died. It reads, “fight fentanyl like a mother.”
“It’s a losing battle but, you know, somebody’s got to be there to let them know — those addicts — that somebody cares,” Jefferson said. “Maybe that one person will come to treatment because you’re there to care.”
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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton and general manager George Paton have spent dozens of drafts inside team headquarters during their respective decades-long careers in the NFL.
They have rarely waited so long to get in on the action.
The Broncos on Friday selected Texas A&M defensive tackle Tyler Onyedim with the 66th pick. That came at the top of the third round, after the Broncos acquired a sixth-round pick from the Bills to hop back from the 62nd spot. The result was that the Broncos, for only the third time in franchise history, did not make a first- or second-round pick during a draft.
“It fell like we thought it would,” Paton said.
The Broncos never felt the urge to dart up the board in search of an instant upgrade. It was the continuation of a message the Broncos have sent to members of their roster this offseason, a group that finished 4 points shy of a trip to the Super Bowl. Denver may not travel the same path in their championship quest this season, but it’ll largely be bringing the same cast on the journey.
Denver has added exactly one veteran free agent since the new league year began in March: Tycen Anderson, a part-time safety and full-time special teamer. The Broncos on Friday became the only team in the league to end Day 2 having made only a single pick.
There was the major splash, of course, that brought dynamic wide receiver Jaylen Waddle to Denver. Can you imagine the pitchforks that would be out in the Mile High City if Waddle hadn’t penguin-danced into town back in March?
“Yesterday, that was a boring day,” Paton said of the draft’s opening round Thursday. “But we forget that we did trade (their first-round pick) for one of the better receivers in the league, so it was a good day.”
Go ahead and scan the initial 53-man roster the Broncos put together last fall, the one that embarked upon a journey that ended with the AFC’s No. 1 seed. A conservative projection right now could point to somewhere between around 43 and 45 of those same players being on the roster that Payton and Paton put together ahead of their 2026 season opener in September. Open starting spots on this roster? They are in short supply. The foundation is largely set.
Quietly, though, the Broncos have set themselves up for a substantial Saturday. The trade with Buffalo pushed Denver’s total of Day 3 picks to seven. The work they do with that capital will be critical to Denver’s quest to ensure its status as title contenders becomes an annual occurrence for the foreseeable future. A massive contract for quarterback Bo Nix looms, but that’s an anchor only if the Broncos can’t continue to reinforce critical rotational spots on their roster through the draft.
And that doesn’t have to come, Paton said, with the glitzy Day 1 and Day 2 selections that garner all the headlines.
“As we go through our discussions, these two fourth-round picks will define our draft,” Paton said. “We should, if we’re doing our job, hit on the second-round (pick), now third. It’s really the middle-round picks that define your draft. We’re looking for young developmental backups with traits that we can develop.”
Onyedim fits that description. After four years at Iowa State, where he played one season with current Broncos defensive lineman Eyioma Uwazurike, Onyedim transferred to Texas A&M in 2025 and put together his best season. Importantly, the scheme at Texas A&M under defensive coordinator Mike Elko showcased his ability as a one-gap interior pass rusher.
“That defensive scheme sometimes, that’s one of the challenges to projecting (a defensive lineman),” Payton said. “The importance of him at the A&M exposure, you got to see a guy play a different position or technique. I think that probably helped a lot of teams (with Onyedim’s evaluation), not just us.”
Uwazurike produced his best season with the Broncos in 2025, his third in the NFL. He’ll enter the final year of his contract this season while playing alongside Onyedim and Sai’vion Jones, the second-year player whom Denver selected out of LSU in the third round last year. The Broncos lost John Franklin-Myers in free agency after he produced 14 1/2 sacks the past two seasons, but the Broncos are taking a developmental approach in replacing his production, while planning to lean more on freshly extended veteran Malcolm Roach.
It’s not a flashy process, but it’s one, extrapolated at positions across the roster, that explains how the Broncos have steadily risen from a five-win outfit the year before Payton arrived in 2022 to a team that ended Kansas City’s near-decade run atop the AFC West.
“The reason why we’ve been so good the last couple of years is because of our depth, and where you get that depth is the third day,” Paton said. “They may be backups in Year 1 like (outside linebacker) Nik Bonitto or (cornerback) Riley Moss, and then in Year 2, if you hit on them, maybe you get a starter or a key contributor. That is what we are looking for on Day 3.”
Bonitto (a late second-round pick in 2022) and Moss (third round in 2023) were actually Day 2 selections, but the Broncos have found other impact pieces on the draft’s final day since Paton became the team’s general manager in 2021. Edge rusher Jonathon Cooper, center Luke Wattenberg, offensive lineman Alex Forsyth, safety and special teams ace JL Skinner, wide receiver Troy Franklin and Uwazurike are all starters or rotational contributors taken in the fourth round or later. The Broncos drafted wide receiver Devaughn Vele in the seventh round in 2024 and were then able to flip him for one of the fourth-round picks they have in this draft in a trade with the Saints last August.
The reality is that good teams with complete rosters are rarely the most buzzy teams during the NFL Draft or the offseason writ large. The Broncos have embodied that truth to the highest degree in the months since their special season ended on the doorstep of a Super Bowl appearance.
Saturday could nonetheless prove to be a pivotal day for the Broncos. The pieces they need to make a championship run in 2026 are in place. But making similar chases in the seasons to follow demands that they hit the defining Day 3 picks ahead.
“We feel good about where we are at, and we feel really good about the day,” Paton said. “We feel good about the first day (of the draft). We got Waddle. Then, we got (Onyedim), who we really like. (Saturday), we’re going to have a good day.”
The last time the Broncos didn’t make a first- or second-round pick in a draft was 1995. A player they did pick? Running back Terrell Davis.
No pressure, George.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Arkansas defensive back Julian Neal became the first Razorback to hear his name called in the NFL Draft on Friday night when the Seattle Seahawks selected him with the 99th overall pick in the third round.
Neal is the first Arkansas defensive back to be drafted since Montaric Brown in 2022 when he was selected by Jacksonville in the seventh round. The Seahawks picked a Razorback for the first time in a decade when they tabbed the late RB Alex Collins in the fifth round of the 2016 draft. Neal’s selection in the third round makes it consecutive years a Hog has been called after Isaac TeSlaa (Detroit) and Landon Jackson (Buffalo) were third-round picks last year.
In his lone season on The Hill, Neal started all 12 games while making 55 tackles and intercepting a pair of passes. He quickly impacted the Razorbacks’ secondary in the team’s second game of the season with 11 tackles, one interception and a pair of pass breakups to become the first Arkansas defensive back since 1997 with 11+ tackles, 1+ interceptions and 2+ pass breakups.
Neal began his career at Fresno State, where he played four seasons. His final season in 2024, the San Francisco native played in all 12 games, including four starts, making 35 tackles with five tackles for loss and two interceptions.
For his career, he recorded 99 tackles with 8.5 tackles for loss and four interceptions across 42 games.
The NFL Draft’s final day, featuring rounds 4-7, begins tomorrow at 11 a.m. on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and NFL Network.
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — For more than six decades now, South Mission Beach in San Diego has been the epicenter for Southern California Beach Volleyball.
Starting in 1965, when the nets first went up, pros and amateurs alike have been fine-tuning their skills from sunrise to sunset.
“This is the only time of day we can practice and play. Most of us work and have busy lives, so the mornings are the only time we can play, and have been for decades”, says Nathaniel Hentchel.
But as it turns out, the sunset sessions at South Mission Beach Volleyball Courts are not allowed, and never have been. Officially, the city courts do not open until 8:00 a.m. But after decades of zero enforcement, the city is suddenly threatening to issue tickets to anyone playing before that time.
“You know these courts have been used every morning for decades. A lot of people out here are shaking their heads, wondering why now. We don’t make noise; we clean up after ourselves. We understand the 8:00 a.m. start time. But it’s never been enforced until now,” says Richard Bailey.
According to the city, the sudden crackdown is the result of noise complaints from nearby homeowners and vacation renters. Many of the homes around here are short-term rentals. They also say it’s never been allowed, even though it happens every morning of every week and has for decades.
“To suddenly enforce it now, why? This is a cultural tradition here in San Diego. Believe me, there’s a lot more noise out here every morning than volleyball players,” says Anne Luempert.
“That’s louder than anything we do out here. Those airplanes are so loud, we have to pause our games just to hear the score called out,” says Barbara Birnbaum.
As a tight-knit culture, there is a certain amount of self policing out here. Including posted signs stating no music until 9:00 a.m., enforced by the players themselves.
So with the threat of losing a lifelong cultural tradition, a movement has begun within the community to change the rules and protect the precious morning tradition.
“So I started a petition on Change.Org to change the rules. We put it up two days ago and got 1,400 signatures in the first day. We now have almost 2,000. We want to have the city change the rules to reflect our community. Part of those rules will be no music until after 9:00 a.m.”
The volleyball groups have also reached out to city council members, hoping they will officially change the hours to reflect reality.
But ironically, these rules only apply to city-owned courts.
If you bring your own poles and a volleyball net, you can play from sunset to sunrise on nearby courts, and no one will harass you.
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